Allocca's Wedding

So like 6 weeks ago, Allocca got married and I went to the wedding. I suppose this is worth blogging about, since he's become a pretty solid friend after I left apple and assumed I wouldn't really see much of him anymore.

It was kind of a murky, ugly day in late September, but the skies worked pretty well with the foliage. I got up at 6:30am if I remember correctly, and pretty much froze to death in the shower. Got there actually a little early, and headed in exhausted and uncomfortable in my ghetto suit.

It was a short ceremony, but it was beautiful outside and it was generally pretty enjoyable.

LOVE

It helped that I was sitting next to this guy. Look at that mustache!

After the ceremony, we all headed in to our tables. The inside of the place was amazing. Look at the frame work!

They even had "Allocalypse" written in lights on the dance floor area, but I forgot to take a picture. Good work. Here's Sean trying to learn the art of the mean mug. He sucked at it.

I was the loser asshole that had an empty seat next to me. Since I don't have a lady friend, I asked Allocca who I should bring with me that he hadn't invited. I had asked Shawn to go with me a week or 2 before, and he said he would, only to hit me with a "oh yea, I forgot to tell you, I can't go" the night before. Thanks asshole. I asked like 12 other people and nobody could go. At least our table got extra food.

I sat next to quite the attractive young lass, who, after talking to her for like 10 seconds, I learned is a fellow food-blogger. So we talked a lot about our blogs, how many hits we get, goals, design, etc. It was a great case of "it's a small world," when the stranger next to your non-existent date's empty chair is another weirdo who writes about food they eat on the internet.

I decided to not only be the dateless loser of the table, but also the resident village idiot, commenting on how I didn't understand why we had so many forks, then taking all of my forks and Shawn's, and eating with them like the moron I am.

CLASS (this and the next 2 shots, I stole from CJ)

After food (which was surprising in that things I didn't think I'd like I liked, and things I was excited about did nothing for me), everyone randomly ended up outside smoking cigars and laughing it up. I enjoyed my first alcohol (an ice cold Bud Diesel) since getting out of the hospital, and we basically just stood outside in the cool air and didn't dance.

Here's Allocca, talking to the coolest guy there. He was wearing a leather sportcoat, smoking a pipe, and regularly put on a monocle most likely solely because it made him awesome.

The pose that everyone took a picture of: Weird top hat pipe guy vs. British bare knuckle boxer guy. Kind of looks like a steampunk festival to me. (Suck it Allocca!)

I think this is my favorite picture of the day:

Eventually the DJ brought everyone in and instead of having the girls try to catch the bouquet, he had them play musical chairs for it. Now I know what you're thinking- has there ever been a more stupid idea at a wedding? What normally takes 10 seconds lasted like 15 minutes at least. We all thought it would be horrible (and it sure started out that way), but after awhile, it became hilarious. Most people didn't want it at all and were forced out there by peer pressure. So watching a bunch of chicks try to lose at a game of musical chairs was pretty hilarious. Then we would randomly decide to cheer for people. We really thought Tara might pull it out, but she lost to someone who REALLY wanted it. Who is the real winner in that situation though? Hmmm...

A little bit of dancing happened, and I sort of forced myself to dance like an idiot just because I enjoy it so much. It was also a way to try and get more people involved (it's weird to me when not a lot of dancing happens at weddings), but it didn't work too much and honestly, I didn't care that much. A lot of people had already left too. It was a weird thing seeing a wedding end at like 4 in the afternoon and seeing people leave early. I also realized that the amount of dancing at a wedding is extremely reliant on 2 things- 1. Darkness: If it's too bright, people don't want to dance too much because everyone will see how stupid they look, and 2. Time of day: Let's face it, most people aren't going to drink a ton at 3 in the afternoon when they know a wedding is scheduled to end at 4:30ish, and most dancing is quite reliant on alcohol consumption too. A night wedding= drunk morons dancing all night and making really stupid faces in the dark. Afternoon wedding= MAYBE some slow dancing, but generally a few drinks, some laughs, and heading home early. Things to think about!

It was good though. I wanted to stay longer, but it was a pretty reasonable amount of time for a wedding that was generally pretty nice. I mostly just enjoyed it because everyone I knew there, I knew from Apple. When I left a year and a half ago, I knew I'd stay in touch with a few people and see some at shows or if I visited Apple here and there. I didn't expect to be invited to weddings and to go hiking with people or go to their parties. It's been awesome that I've kept in touch with these people- they're good people.

This was the first social thing I'd done in like 3 weeks and the first alcohol I drank. It was also the first time I didn't think too much about what I was eating (I was eating as heart-healthy as possible after the hospital, and didn't even really eat dessert or much sugar). I decided after that I should probably go wander around the woods and get some instagrams too. So, since the wedding was close to Wachusett Mountain, I decided to see if I could drive to the top. Turns out I could.

The views from the top were pretty unexciting and it was super foggy, but I did get some cool pictures of the cell tower. This one made it to instagram:

I learned while at the wedding that Ralph (who left apple and moved away) would be visiting and hanging out at Unos for awhile, so I decided to drive super out of the way and headed an hour east to Burlington to visit. I fought sleep the whole way and showed up in my wedding clothes. It was good to see the old lunatic.

Even Stevie was there!

Not a ton of people visited, but enough did that it was totally worth it. I even got Zack to come out. Just hanging out with Ralph and making fun of him and Clark with Stevie B, and saying stupid things and doing Laflamme impressions to make Zack spit out his food felt like old times. I don't miss work in the least, but I absolutely miss hanging out with everyone from work. 

I'm happy I've stayed in touch with so many people and am able to visit as often as I do, even though I should visit more. Thanks for the invitation Allocca. Let our friendship continue. What a solid day this turned out to be.

senile old man, dude from reveille, girl I have a crush on

ALRIGHT, THE NEXT BLOG POST WILL BE STUFF FROM OCTOBER!

currently listening to: The Tony Danza Tapdance Extravaganza- "Danza IV: The Alpha-The Omega"